The Steward's Room
The steward was in charge of the servants, and here in his room there were provisions for all sorts of tasks, many of which involved the use of animal products.
Although they were eaten as mutton and provided milk, sheep were most valued for their wool. In the late middle ages, wool became the largest and most lucrative trade in England. Flemish and Italian merchants paid good money for bales of raw wool, which were then shipped to Antwerp and Genoa to be used in making fine garments and tapestries. The wool trade proved so profitable that in 1275 King Edward I began to tax the export of wool, and by the 15th century almost 63% of the Crown’s total income came from wool. As more and more land was being turned into sheep enclosures, the landscape of England changed. People lost their jobs, and villages were abandoned as farms and forests were replaced with fields for sheep. This led to criticism and even violent revolts against landowners. In his 1516 book Utopia Thomas More satirically declares that sheep (and their owners) have become “so greedy and fierce that they devour men themselves”.
Cows and Sheep were both vital animals to the medieval economy. In life they provided milk and in death they provided meat. Although they were farmed out in the countryside, they were brought into the city to be butchered.
Whilst cows could provide milk, meat, and leather, oxen were valued for their labour. Oxen are cattle, usually castrated bulls, that were used as draft animals. The ox was the principal plough animal of the Middle Ages because of its strength and stability. In the north of England, fields were measured by the amount of land that could be ploughed by a single ox (one bovate) or a team of eight oxen (one carucate) in a season. After its death, an ox would still provide meat, leather and horn.
Animal fur and hair had a wide range of uses, from providing fashionable trims to clothing to sealing up gaps between ship timbers.
In York, the guild of butchers kept their shops and slaughter yards on the Shambles. As much of the animal was used as possible, with bones and teeth being carved into useful tools. Chickens were treated similarly. In life they gave eggs, and in death they were food. Their feathers could be used to stuff pillows, and sometimes their wings were kept to make feather dusters.
Animals were not only depicted in manuscripts like the York Bestiary, but were also vital to their production, providing everything from the skins for parchment to the designs for book clasps.
